Good God!She was not like Mama…was she?
Overwhelmed by the notion, by the sudden change in her circumstances, she rose abruptly between courses. All eyes turned to her, some curious, others pitying. Even the servants stilled in the act of completing the change of courses. Griffin’s blue gaze was probing and concerned, trying to see more of her than she wanted.
She kept her gaze averted, feeling as if her corset had been laced far too tightly earlier that morning. “Excuse me, if you please,” she mumbled, scrambling from the room and from the sea of strange faces.
Beyond the dining hall, she grabbed two fistfuls of her skirts, lifted them, and ran. As she began her flight, she heard the echo of Griffin’s voice, concern coloring the deep timbre as it echoed off the old walls of Harlton Hall. But she did not stop. She ran and ran and ran, down the hall, around a bend, down a flight of stairs, then up another.
She ran from herself. From her new husband. From the past. Most of all, she ran from the thought she had become her mother, so caught up in what she wanted, in her own selfish needs of the moment, she no longer cared about anyone else around her or how badly she hurt them.
She stopped when she reached a tower overlooking the sprawling lawns in an original part of the centuries’ old home, in a wing which had yet to undergo the tedious restorations evident in the other parts of the home she had seen. The tower’s windows were old and thick, with a crack splitting one of the panes. The walls were fashioned of stone and mortar, and the air smelled musty. Perverse creature that she was, this room comforted her. She liked it best. Perhaps because it reminded her of Albemarle, a place she had not returned to since Mama’s death.
With a deep breath, she sank to the stone floor in the drab slat of sunlight filtering through the clouds. Her corset tightened painfully, biting into her sides as she folded herself in half, borrowed skirts pooling about her. The dress, belonging to Bridget, was smaller about the waist than she could comfortably fit, and as a result, she had been laced into her corset with more vengeance than ordinary.
But she did not mind.
The pain felt good. It felt real. It reminded her she was alive, brought her back to herself. She inhaled and exhaled, tried to calm her frantically racing heart. And then, the unmistakable sound of footsteps reached her.
She braced herself for censure. For condemnation.
Charles would have been horrified by such a reaction, this she knew.
But not the man she had married. The Duke of Strathmore approached her slowly, almost hesitantly. Said nothing more than her name in that low, delicious rasp.
“Violet?”
She glanced up, all the way up his lean form to his face, and he was so handsome standing there, looking as uncertain as she felt, she physically ached. In her heart. In her breasts. Between her thighs.
Feeling even more foolish than before, she flashed him a tremulous attempt at a smile. “Griffin.”
“May I join you?” he asked, as if she were inhabiting a throne, instead of hunkering down on a dirty old floor in a musty tower.
As if it mattered. As ifshemattered.
She swallowed and nodded, a new sort of misery descending. “If you do not mind dirtying yourself. I am afraid I did not realize the state of the floor.” She paused, thinking better of what she had just said. “That is a lie. I did realize it. But in that moment, I did not care.”
“A little dirt on the arse never hurt anyone,” he said with a careful grin, before hunkering down beside her. He settled himself against her, so every part of them touched, from shoulder to hip, and stretched his long legs out alongside her voluminous silver skirts.
She leaned into him instinctively, finding solace in the heat and strength of his potently male form. “I do hope I have not ruined Her Grace’s skirts.”
“If you have, we will buy her a replacement in apologia. I am sure she will not mind.”
We.
That lone word had her turning her head toward him, facing him. They were husband and wife now. Inextricable. In such proximity, he was even more beautiful than from afar, and he took her breath and made her heart leap.
Violet bit her lip. “You did not have to follow me.”
“Of course I did.” He was solemn, staring at her as if she were something marvelous, a work of art on canvas he was seeing for the first time. “You are my wife.”
Wife.Yet another “w” word that seemed so foreign, and yet, filled her with a strange, new thrill. “I did not intend to flee the wedding breakfast or to bring you shame.”
“No,” he said softly, shaking his head as he studied her in that careful, considering way of his. “You could never bring me shame, spitfire. Not by being yourself and feeling everything with that big heart of yours. You were thinking of your brother, were you not?”
It seemed a matter of course he could read her so well. That heknewher when no one else did. “Yes. And…my mother.”
So much of her past rolled up her throat, unburied at last, and yet, she could not bring herself to speak any of it aloud. Not yet.
He surprised her by taking her left hand in his right and threading their fingers together. “You can tell me if you like. Or we can sit here until you are ready to go.”
